


Dignity

by ThatAloneOne



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Duelling, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:27:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28238430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatAloneOne/pseuds/ThatAloneOne
Summary: The Second challenges the Ninth for keys instead of the Sixth. Or:“Give your cavalier some dignity,” Deuteros tried.Gideon, who had never had dignity before in her life, was taking a detour through giddiness on her way to fear. She was also already on top of the table.
Comments: 23
Kudos: 91
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Dignity

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheOccasionalMishap](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheOccasionalMishap/gifts).



> Takes place in Gideon the Ninth chapter 23 — otherwise known as the scene where Camilla duels on a table. But this time... _Gideon_ gets challenged to table duelling. The rest of the Houses watch, because the Second declaring they know best and want all the keys is still bonkers even if they're challenging the Ninth instead of the Sixth.
> 
> Sorted as F/F because Gideon and Harrow will notice they're in the middle of the best possible enemies to lovers arc at _some_ point, though not explicitly in this fic.

“This—key hoarding—cannot continue. I told you before that the Second House would take responsibility if nobody else had the stomach for it. That begins now.”

* * *

“Ninth,” the Captain said suddenly, “unhand your keys. I will safekeep them.”

Gideon didn’t even have to look to know that Harrow was bristling. She almost imagined she could hear the bones of Harrow’s corset crackling, or perhaps her earrings rattling like very angry dead bees. Harrow said, in the sort of tone she didn’t bother to use with Gideon anymore, “You will not.”

“Ninth,” Deuteros said again. She sounded like she was talking to a naughty child. Gideon watched Jeannemary and the tiniest necromancer lurch to attention like they’d been slapped and for the first time thought she might be glad Harrow had kept her from the Cohort. “Ninth, don’t make it a challenge.” The Captain flicked a glance at Gideon, almost pitying. “Surely...”

Harrow didn’t budge. The skull painted on her face may as well have been bone for how much it moved. Gideon thought she looked constipated. “Name the terms.”

Deuteros looked at Gideon again, like Gideon had any sort of sway over her necromancer. Gideon had to resist the urge to stick out her tongue. Adrenaline was rising in her now, the hairs on the back of her neck standing to attention under her hood. Deuteros sighed. “I name the time, you name the place. I name _now_ , Nonagesimus. Is this what you want?”

“Here,” Harrow said freezingly. For a moment Gideon thought she meant that Gideon and Dyas would be trying to stab each other around the crowd of other Caananites, which was an exciting proposal, but Harrow inclined her head toward the wooden table. Who the fuck fought on a _table_. Gideon would have been delighted with the spectacle of it all if it wasn't going to be _her_ waving around a weenie of a sword on top of one.

Harrow was trying to play mind games, Gideon decided. Harrow had been there for a lot of Gideon’s training, but it wasn’t like she had started clapping every time Gideon had boned — ha — a skeleton. Harrow had seen that duel with the Third, Gideon was pretty sure, which could mean she was setting up Gideon to be stone cold murdered for the sake of the facility keys. Gideon considered, briefly, that this was some sort of trial-induced hallucination. It wasn’t like the Second was offering other options, but Harrow was staking her entire chance at Lyctorhood on Gideon’s sword fighting prowess.

Gideon just didn’t know why _her_. The Second wanted keys, but surely it would have been easier to beat up one of the awful teens instead of the Ninth. If Gideon was the one trying to steal keys, she would have gone for them, or maybe Camilla because of her old-lady slacks. Well, Gideon would have picked Camilla if she hadn’t been spending time with the Sixth and soaking up Camilla’s immaculate _don’t fuck with me_ vibes. Captain Deuteros must have seen something in Camilla when the Sixth had argued with her in the hallway, or her cavalier had watched Babs wipe the floor with Gideon and put more stock in it than Gideon had thought. Or maybe the Second thought she was just another Necromancer’s bone suitcase, this time in a fancier package. _The less-able duellist_ , Dyas had called her. That had been against Naberius. Did she think that was against everyone?

Instead of thinking about that at all, Gideon set to stripping. The rest of the room didn’t explode into cheers, but Gideon forgave them for being distracted.

“She’s betting that you can’t fight back,” Corona was saying, half-whispered and half-urgent. “She-”

“If I wanted your opinion,” Harrow said, “I would ask.” She turned to Gideon and had to pause with her mouth slightly open, wordless. Then: “What are you _doing_.”

Gideon made an only semi-obscene gesture. For a brief, wonderful moment, Harrow looked like herself again, which meant she looked like she wanted to strangle Gideon. Gideon just grinned, wild, and flung her robes to the ground. The room quieted.

“Give your cavalier some dignity,” Deuteros tried.

Gideon, who had never had dignity before in her life, was taking a detour through giddiness on her way to fear. She was also already on top of the table. It wobbled underneath her, but not much. Gideon was so tense her muscle cramps were developing muscle cramps. The hairs on her arms were standing up now too, exposed to the cold air of this terrible little room.

Gideon needed to be loose. Loose, and not trying to parry every damn attack. She desperately wanted her two-hander, if only for the look on everyone’s faces, but alas. Gideon didn’t get the feeling there was much space in an honour duel for someone to run off and grab an illegal weapon, even if she was to break her vow of silence to ask for it. A needle it was, then.

She kept the sunglasses. Probably Gideon could have argued they gave her an advantage of her opponent not being able to predict her as easily, but really it was because they looked badass. If she was going to die here, on this table, she was going to go out looking cooler than the Second.

“Hyoid down, disarm legal, necromancer’s mercy,” the Captain declared. Gideon could feel Harrow’s eyes burning into her back, probably painting a necromantic sigil for a quick yet painful death. Gideon wondered if anyone had told Harrow what that meant, and if she cared that the terms meant the Second could do just about anything to her from the head down until one of the necromancers cried mercy. Necromancers and skulls. Why was it _always_ skulls. 

Harrow said: “Fine.”

At that, Marta Dyas, cavalier of the Second House, clambered onto the wooden table with all the grace of a Cohort soldier. It wasn’t much. Gideon’s shoulders had relaxed, watching her, watching the match draw closer. Every breath felt like warm oil in her throat even with the cold air. The other match had been to the touch. _This_ was much more Gideon’s style, and her opponent knew it. Something had tightened in Dyas’s face and Gideon thought again of the fight the Second had watched — had she told her necromancer that Gideon had floored Naberius, or just that Gideon wasn’t good with a sword?

It didn’t matter now. Gideon counted paces back on the table and tossed her offhand arm behind her, the glass knuckle-knives a comforting counterweight. Her heart pounded.

“Griddle,” Harrow said, almost tentative.

Gideon looked at her. From above, with the details of her face and robes ever so slightly blurred, she looked less like herself and more like the Ninth had coughed up whatever was in the Tomb and had the nuns teach it fashion. Gideon watched her Reverend Daughter search for words, and she watched Harrow not find them. Between them, silence stretched.

“ _Begin_.”

**Author's Note:**

> Gideon. Gideon. Gideon, Harrow trusts in your skills and also can't deal with seeing your extremely rad biceps. Not everything is a mindgame, sometimes its just homoeroticism. 
> 
> Happy Yuletide TheOccassionalMishap! Behold, some artisanal buffoon lesbian content. I'm glad to have written for you, it got me in gear to write more fic for Gideon, my favourite book of the year. 
> 
> Usual authors note goes here when the collection is revealed! And thanks to my beta!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Dignity](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28579917) by [aether (ThatAloneOne)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatAloneOne/pseuds/aether)




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